Talk:Ten spiritual realms

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Does anyone know to what extent this sort of "psychologizing" presentation -- in this specific form, not just in general -- is to be found in Mahayana Buddhism? Is it just Nichiren Buddhism? Or just Soka Gakkai? Are there close parallels elsewhere in Mahayana? RandomCritic 18:15, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Good question, I was just entering this page to note that IMHO this is not at all the general Buddhist view, certainly not of Tibetan Buddhsism, Zen and I also think Theravada. To present the realms this way would be following a minority view as far as I know, althought he direction is correct. rudy 22:30, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
It is definitely to be found in the writings of Tibetan teachers like Chogyam Trungpa et al. See also the attribution to the Dalai Lama regarding the Six Realms [1]. I am in the process of reworking some of these descriptions of the states to fit more closely with the attributes more commonly associated with them. HarmonicSphere, 03:32, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
Good point! However, what His Holiness mentioned is not at all the same as saying that eg. humans can 'be in hell' or 'be in heaven'. By definition (my words) hell is a type of existence classified by mere sufering, without any break of happiness. The human realm is defined as a mix of happiness and suffering combined with an intelligent mind (unlike relatively simple-minded animals). To me, a human who occasionally has a 'hellish experience', is quite something different from an existence which can be only defined as suffering from birth to death. So the mere point that these negative or positive experiences normally move from the one to the other, means we live in neither hell or heaven as per these definitions. Of course, if we try to understand how heaven or hell 'feels' we can only refer to examples of our current life. rudy 18:24, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

I've corrected the wording so the article is likely to be at least correct, if unclear. Peter jackson 16:07, 16 May 2007 (UTC)